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Dinosaurs, humans coexist in U.S. creation museum
Reuters ^ | 1 hour, 39 minutes ago | Andrea Hopkins

Posted on 01/14/2007 5:31:07 PM PST by Tim Long

PETERSBURG, Kentucky - Ken Ham's sprawling creation museum isn't even open yet, but an expansion is already underway in the state-of-the art lobby, where grunting dinosaurs and animatronic humans coexist in a Biblical paradise.

A crush of media attention and packed preview sessions have convinced Ham that nearly half a million people a year will come to Kentucky to see his Biblically correct version of history.

"I think we'll be surprised at how many people come," Ham said as he dodged dozens of designers working to finish exhibits in time for the May 28 opening.

The $27 million project, which also includes a planetarium, a special-effects theater, nature trails and a small lake, is privately funded by people who believe the Bible's first book, Genesis, is literally true.

For them, a museum showing Christian schoolchildren and skeptics alike how the earth, animals, dinosaurs and humans were created in a six-day period about 6,000 years ago -- not over millions of years, as evolutionary science says -- is long overdue.

While foreign media and science critics have mostly come to snigger at exhibits explaining how baby dinosaurs fit on Noah's Ark and Cain married his sister to people the earth, museum spokesman and vice-president Mark Looy said the coverage has done nothing but drum up more interest.

"Mocking publicity is free publicity," Looy said. Besides, U.S. media have been more respectful, mindful perhaps of a 2006 Gallup Poll showing almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

Looy said supporters of the museum include evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews and conservative Catholics, as well as the local Republican congressman, Geoff Davis (news, bio, voting record), and his family, who have toured the site.

FROM 'JAWS' TO EDEN

While the debate between creationists and mainstream scientists has bubbled up periodically in U.S. schools since before the Scopes "monkey trial" in nearby Tennessee 80 years ago, courts have repeatedly ruled that teaching religious theory in public schools is unconstitutional.

Ham, an Australian who moved to America 20 years ago, believes creationists could have presented a better case at the Scopes trail if they'd been better educated -- but he's not among those pushing for creation to be taught in school.

Rather than force skeptical teachers to debate creation, Ham wants kids to come to his museum, where impassioned experts can make their case that apparently ancient fossils and the Grand Canyon were created just a few thousand years ago in a great flood.

"It's not hitting them over the head with a Bible, it's just teaching that we can defend what it says," he said.

Ham, who also runs a Christian broadcasting and publishing venture, said the museum's Hollywood-quality exhibits set the project apart from the many quirky Creation museums sprinkled across America.

The museum's team of Christian designers include theme park art director Patrick Marsh, who designed the "Jaws" and "King Kong" attractions at Universal Studios in Florida, as well as dozens of young artists whose conviction drives their work.

"I think it shows (nonbelievers) the other side of things," said Carolyn Manto, 27, pausing in her work painting Ice Age figures for a display about caves in France.

"I don't think it's going to be forcing any viewpoint on them, but challenging them to think critically about their evolutionary views," said Manto, who studied classical sculpture before joining the museum.

Still, Looy is upfront about the museum's mission: to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with nonbelievers.

"I think a lot of people are going to come out of curiosity ... and we're going to present the Gospel. This is going to be an evangelistic center," Looy said. A chaplain has been hired for museum-goers in need of spiritual guidance.

The museum's rural location near the border of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana places it well within America's mostly conservative and Christian heartland. But the setting has another strategic purpose: two-thirds of Americans are within a day's drive of the site, and Cincinnati's international airport is minutes away.

The project has not been without opposition. Zoning battles with environmentalists and groups opposed to the museum's message have delayed construction and the museum's opening day has been delayed repeatedly.

The museum has hired extra security and explosives-sniffing dogs to counter anonymous threats of damage to the building. "We've had some opposition," Looy said.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: darwinismisareligion; darwinismsnotscience; evolutionisareligion; flintstonesministry; goddidit; ignoranceisstrength; yecapologetics
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To: Tim Long
Congratulations America, we are now state of the art in science, (provided its the year 1400)

Dumb all over.


41 posted on 01/14/2007 6:49:48 PM PST by Central Scrutiniser (Never Let a Theocon Near a Textbook)
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To: SALChamps03
"No list of ‘Lifes Top Ten Ironies’ would be complete without the prominent placement of fundamentalist Christians who swear up and down that our infinitely knowing “God works in mysterious and beautiful ways”, but can see neither the beauty nor the mystery of their God setting the Big Bang in motion some 13.7 billion years ago firm in the knowledge that life would evolve on a planet to be eventually called ‘Earth’, and that evolution would result in Man."
42 posted on 01/14/2007 6:50:59 PM PST by Psycho_Bunny
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To: Names Ash Housewares
The only place dinos and people were together at the same time is in works of fiction. Draw your own conclusions from that.

Nah. I don't tend to draw conclusions from unfounded statements.

43 posted on 01/14/2007 6:52:13 PM PST by Tim Long (Pardon Ramos and Compean. January 17 is approaching fast.)
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To: Coyoteman

Again, I am amazed at the absolute deliberate display of ignorance.

I'm sure Mr. Ham is much like the last businessman to make money off of ignorant creationists, "Dr." Kent Hovind, who currently resides in a 6x8 cell for fraud.


44 posted on 01/14/2007 6:54:02 PM PST by Central Scrutiniser (Never Let a Theocon Near a Textbook)
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To: Psycho_Bunny
but can see neither the beauty nor the mystery of their God setting the Big Bang in motion some 13.7 billion years ago firm in the knowledge that life would evolve on a planet to be eventually called ‘Earth’, and that evolution would result in Man."

Deities don't guide or set in motion naturalistic processes. You can't have it both ways. Pick a worldview.

45 posted on 01/14/2007 6:54:07 PM PST by Tim Long (Pardon Ramos and Compean. January 17 is approaching fast.)
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To: Central Scrutiniser

46 posted on 01/14/2007 6:54:56 PM PST by Central Scrutiniser (Never Let a Theocon Near a Textbook)
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To: BillyBoy

The bad part of your post is that one has to read it twice very slowly to make sure of it's true meaning.


47 posted on 01/14/2007 6:55:02 PM PST by UpAllNight
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To: Names Ash Housewares

So how come Noah didn't save all the millions of dinosaur species?


48 posted on 01/14/2007 6:55:02 PM PST by Eternal_Bear
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To: popdonnelly
Teach the contraversy! Who's to say which the theories below is the correct one?


49 posted on 01/14/2007 6:55:02 PM PST by BillyBoy (Don't blame Illinois for Pelosi -- we elected ROSKAM)
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To: BillyBoy
Teach the contraversy! Who's to say which the theories below is the correct one?

And who's to say controversy is spelled with an "o." Two different sides of the keyboard.

50 posted on 01/14/2007 6:56:37 PM PST by Tim Long (Pardon Ramos and Compean. January 17 is approaching fast.)
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To: muir_redwoods
Learn to use verbs properly?

I'd rather forget to put "be" in than believe the universe is 4 billion years older than it really is.

51 posted on 01/14/2007 6:58:07 PM PST by Tim Long (Pardon Ramos and Compean. January 17 is approaching fast.)
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To: Eternal_Bear
So how come Noah didn't save all the millions of dinosaur species?

Q. What's harder than getting a pregnant Brontosaurus into the ark?

A. Getting a Brontosaurus pregnant in the ark!

(Noah! Make them stop. I'm getting seasick!)


52 posted on 01/14/2007 6:58:35 PM PST by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
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To: BillyBoy
I'll take Odin any day, but FSM is closer to the truth.


53 posted on 01/14/2007 6:58:41 PM PST by Central Scrutiniser (Never Let a Theocon Near a Textbook)
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To: Tim Long

--I'd rather forget to put "be" in than believe the universe is 4 billion years older than it really is.--

Since most believe it to be about 14 billion years old, then you are saying that it is really 10 billion years old?

Good. We are making progress.


54 posted on 01/14/2007 7:01:32 PM PST by UpAllNight
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To: Tim Long

"Deities don't guide or set in motion naturalistic processes."

Why?


55 posted on 01/14/2007 7:05:13 PM PST by Boxen (Branigan's law is like Branigan's love--Hard and fast.)
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To: Tim Long

Some people sure put their limits on the Infinite Mind.


56 posted on 01/14/2007 7:06:17 PM PST by HuntsvilleTxVeteran ("Remember the Alamo, Goliad and WACO, It is Time for a new San Jacinto")
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To: Tim Long

Darwinisms minions are terrified of the truth.


57 posted on 01/14/2007 7:06:28 PM PST by balch3
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To: Tim Long
Although there are yet major problems with evolution, accounting for the observable expansion of the universe without taking relativity into account is inexcusable.

E=mc², after all, is how we beat Japan in WWII.

58 posted on 01/14/2007 7:08:05 PM PST by onedoug
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To: Anti-Bubba182

MAN! What have they been feeding Dino?!


59 posted on 01/14/2007 7:08:28 PM PST by cjmae (Sanity was not equally distributed)
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To: balch3

Creationist luddites are afraid of research and science destroying their wafer thin faith.


60 posted on 01/14/2007 7:08:35 PM PST by Central Scrutiniser (Never Let a Theocon Near a Textbook)
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